Читать книгу The Queen's Physician - Edgar Maass - Страница 6

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The verse, I grant, was crude enough, and yet I was as keenly moved by it as by the portrait itself. When the time came for me to leave I was desolated by the fear that I should never see the Queen again. The ice-gray servant, whose name I subsequently discovered to be Mantel, led the way. He took me to another room where Count Seckendorff was waiting. Upon his polite invitation I sank into a chair, quite exhausted by my strong feelings. I anticipated that he would have letters and advices for me to take along to England. As it proved, he proposed an altogether different commission.

“You can see, my dear sir,” he said, “how unhappy the Queen is. The chronic longing for her children and the enforced isolation in this strange castle are disturbing her to the core. Her doctor fears that the slightest illness may carry her off, for the good reason that she no longer has any particular desire to live.”

Gloomily I acknowledged this fact, whereupon the Count rose, opened the door and cautiously peeked up and down the corridor. The servant Mantel was standing guard outside. “Keep your eyes open, Mantel,” the Count ordered, “and be sure to knock instantly if anyone comes.” Then he pulled up his chair and said in a whisper: “Matters cannot continue like this, Wraxall. Something has got to be done, and done at once.”

I recoiled from his intensity and could only stare at him.

“Do you believe in freedom?” he asked suddenly.

“What do you mean by that?” I countered.

“You’re an educated man,” he went on. “You’ve heard of other names besides Voltaire and Rousseau. You must be aware that our times are sliding inexorably, with ever increasing speed, into an abyss.”

“My dear Count,” I said, more confused than ever. “I really am unable to follow your drift.”

“Come, you understand me well enough,” the Count insisted, smiling at me. “All the young people nowadays understand these things. Fools excepted, of course, and you hardly fall into that category. You simply don’t believe that I, Count Seckendorff, a man nearly sixty years old, should have an idea or two himself. My good fellow, let me assure you that even at sixty not all men are cretins.”

Hastily I minimized this peculiar statement with a wave of my hand, but the Count went right on in the same vein.

“Hear me out carefully,” he said. “If you do not share my beliefs we can simply shake hands and bid each other goodbye as friends. But if you do share them, I have an important mission for you to perform. And this is what I have to say. The days of absolutism are numbered. The injustice of unlimited monarchy, its hostility to life itself, stink to high heaven. The old world is played out. The supporters of absolute monarchy know this very well. Therefore it is the duty of every honest man to attack them and set the new and better world in motion.”

I thought this over for a time and found I had nothing cogent to say either way. But aloud I said: “That is also my conviction, Count Seckendorff.”

“Very good,” he said. “I wasn’t mistaken in you after all. Mr. Wraxall, you can materially further constitutional government in Denmark and Norway. At the same time you can help the Queen get back her children and her crown.”

“You overestimate my powers, Count Seckendorff,” I told him, shaking my head. “Or are you merely making game of me, sir?”

“I am doing nothing of the sort,” said the Count. He pressed me back into my chair. “I expect no superhuman accomplishments from you at all. Almost all the Danish nobility and the majority of the bourgeoisie are ranged on our side. The situation is well prepared. What we lack at the moment is a man to act as secret messenger between Celle, Copenhagen, Hamburg and London. Is that clear to you?”

I could not contain myself, I leapt to my feet. The idea, of course, was fascinating, but my strength and my experience still seemed grossly disproportionate to the needs of any such far-reaching plan. I hesitated. Yet one thing drew me irresistibly. At least I would be able to see her again.

“Does the Queen know about this?” I asked breathlessly.

“No, right now we must spare her all unnecessary worries,” he told me. “But if you agree to my proposition, I’ll speak with her this evening about it.”

“I agree, then,” I said. “You have my word.” At this moment I felt enormously good and important.

Observing my mood of dedication Count Seckendorff looked at me somberly. “I must warn you,” he said, “that you will be running grave risks. The country is swarming with spies in the hire of the present Danish government. Even here in Celle we are by no means safe. Not so long ago I had to get rid of an Italian musician because he was sending confidential reports to Copenhagen. The only ones you can trust absolutely are Mantel and myself. I must say, in short, that if you are found out, it means death.”

“Nevertheless I still agree,” I said impatiently. “I am ready for your orders, Count Seckendorff.”

“Not so fast, my friend,” he said. “Tomorrow morning when I’ve spoken with the Queen I’ll consult with you.”

That night I could hardly sleep for excitement. Count Seckendorff arrived early. He, too, looked as if he had not slept a wink. “It was not so easy, dealing with Madame the Queen,” he told me. “She has no political ambitions whatsoever and agreed to our project only when I emphasized that by this means she would be able to see her children again. Now, this is what you have to do. Go to Hamburg and call at the Hotel Koenig von Preussen. There you will find Baron Buelow. Approach him casually. Give him this password—Struensee.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Later on you will understand everything,” he said. “Baron Buelow, when he hears the password, will give you a rendezvous. When you meet him at the designated place, show him this. It will serve to identify you.” Hereupon he took the Queen’s garnet cross from his pocket and handed it over to me.

I was so overcome, holding the cross in my own hands, that I began to stutter something about eternal loyalty. The Count cut me short.

“Baron Buelow will let you know what sort of guarantees our friends expect from us,” he said, watching me closely. “He will tell you how far preparations in Copenhagen have progressed. Should he give you anything in writing, read it until you have memorized the contents word for word and destroy the paper. Come to an understanding with the Baron about a place where you can meet him again in ten days or thereabouts, preferably some village in the moorland. And after Buelow has talked with you and given you whatever information he deems proper, return unobtrusively, traveling by night if you can, here to Celle. Leave your coach at Sandkrug, and assume the name of Chevalier d’Autan. The Queen thinks you look like a Frenchman. You have a Frenchman’s easy manner, she says.”

I blushed with joy and embarrassment.

“Each morning the castle gets a list of the strangers arriving in Celle,” the Count continued. “By this means we will learn of your arrival. Then I shall send Mantel to meet you, and he will conduct you to the Queen.”

An hour later I left, taking the same route back over which I had traveled two days before, moving across the sunny heath country. But in these two days a great deal had happened to me. A strange power had come into my life, and I was no longer my own master. Without any act of volition on my part my whole being had grown immeasurably greater than I had ever dreamed. I took the garnet cross out of my pocket and passionately kissed it. The sweetest, most sorrowful, most blessed feeling overcame it. Through the window of my coach the monotonous landscape of the heath rolled by, the little birches and the dark junipers of torch-like shape.

I had no trouble finding Baron Buelow in Hamburg. A servant in the Hotel Koenig von Preussen pointed him out to me readily enough. He was talking at the time to the Count and Countess Holstein, so I learned from him later on. I managed to get close to him and whisper my password without being noticed by the rest of the company. He turned white as a sheet and for a long time stared at the floor without answering me. Then he nodded and I followed him unconcernedly, as Count Seckendorff had instructed, out behind a column in the vestibule. Casually, as planned, we came together. He let his snuff box fall and both of us bent at the same time to pick it up.

“Tonight, at eleven, at the Dammtor Cemetery,” he whispered, and aloud said: “Je vous remercie, Monsieur.”

“Not at all,” I replied in French, then in German added: “I shall see you at eleven.”

Promptly at the agreed hour I was at the rendezvous. It was preternaturally still in the cemetery. The autumnal moon cast a mildly glittering light on the tombstones. The Baron drew me off into the deep shadow of a willow clump. Concealed there I showed him the garnet cross.

“I recognize it,” he said. “It’s the Queen’s cross. And who are you?”

“I am the Queen’s agent.”

“I don’t want to know your name, then,” he said. “Not yet, at any rate. It will be better for both of us if I don’t.”

I concurred in this and then, as I had been told, asked: “Are they ready in Copenhagen? What guarantees do your friends want?”

“Listen to me very carefully,” the Baron replied. “I have nothing written with me, for that would be too dangerous.” He drew me deeper into the still clump of willows and we found seats on a flat tombstone. He proceeded to explain the situation in Copenhagen in detail. Having asked him many questions, all of which he was able to answer exactly, I realized that the revolt against the regime was far advanced. Presently he came to speak about guarantees. In this regard he asked that England, by means of a confidential letter from the King, or by some communication from our foreign secretary, Lord Suffolk, should acknowledge the sovereignty of the Queen’s government, once power had been seized.

“From the Queen herself,” he added, “we ask that she give Denmark and Norway a constitution and free the peasants from serfdom.”

“You can rest at ease on these issues,” I said as learnedly as I could. “Beyond a desire to have her children with her the Queen’s only purpose in advancing her claim to the throne is to institute a liberal constitution.”

“On what do you base that conclusion?” he inquired.

“I got it from Count Seckendorff,” I said. “But I assure you, my dear sir, that I shall not forget to speak with the Queen personally about it.”

“Very good,” he said. As Seckendorff had done, he warned me to watch my step. “You are very young, Monsieur,” he said. “You young gentlemen are apt to underrate the opposition. You blunder forward, and we wise old owls begin to sweat. You must not lose sight of the fact that the lives and property of many people depend entirely on your wit. You must make yourself as obscure as possible. And above all I warn you to keep an eye on the Princess of Braunschweig, the Queen’s sister. We have good reason to suspect that she is an informer for the present Danish government. The House of Braunschweig wishes our cause nothing but ill.”

I promised to keep a close watch on myself, although I must admit that secretly I thought his cautiousness rather overdone. In any case, a week later, after I had also consulted with young Baron Schimmelmann, one of the richest nobles, reputedly, in Denmark, I traveled back to Celle. This time I took the Lueneburg road instead of going by way of Bremen, so as not to arouse public interest by frequent comings and goings over the same route. I wore different clothing, a blue coat with silver buttons, white leather trousers and yellow top-boots. Now I not only felt like Werther, but looked more or less like him.

I arrived at Celle about midnight, that is, I arrived at Sandkrug just outside Celle, and there left my coach. The next morning I rose early and spent the whole forenoon writing a letter to the Queen in which I described developments in Denmark and the demands of Baron Buelow. Since I had heard that the Princess of Braunschweig was again at the castle, I said at the beginning of my letter:

“Madame, the contents of this letter are extremely secret and of critical import for Your Majesty’s future. Furthermore, should they become other than privily known the lives and property of many others will be seriously endangered. On this account I beg Your Majesty to read this message in strict seclusion.”

About one o’clock Mantel appeared and took me to the castle for dinner. The company was already assembled in the dining room. I kissed the Queen’s hand, and her sister’s as well. The Queen greeted me cordially.

“I’m very pleased to see you among us again, Mr. Wraxall,” she said. “Count Seckendorff tells me that you have news for me from Hamburg.”

The Princess of Braunschweig, who had been keeping her ear cocked, now said:

“What sort of news, pray, Caroline?”

Before the Queen could answer I thrust in my oar. “I have a letter for Madame from the English consul in Hamburg,” I lied. “It concerns the French comedians, I believe, who are scheduled to play here in Celle.”

“Really? How nice,” the Princess said and was content.

Thereupon I handed over the letter to the Queen. She withdrew with it in her hand to a bay window, the while I did my best to hold the Princess in conversation about the newest modes. A quick side glance convinced me that the Queen had read and responded to my warning. She dropped the letter into her pocket without attempting to read further.

The dinner passed with much lively flow of talk, an exchange, however, in which the Queen herself took little part. In order to divert the Princess’ attention from the Queen’s preoccupied state I remember that I told the old anecdote about the Earl and Countess of Effingham, which I had heard from the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Earl, who is famous for his eccentricities, at the close of a dinner and in the presence of the Duke, called loudly to the Duke’s wife. “Open your mouth wide, darling,” he commanded, and this she did unthinkingly. Then he threw sugar plums across the width of the table into the astonished lady’s maw, with such skill that they landed like balls in a net. The good Duke was amazed to observe this novel method of offering sweets. He had asked me whether this practice was customary in English society. Had it something to do with the sporting interests of my people, he had wanted to know?

The Princess laughed and the conversation was deftly turned to the endless social peculiarities flourishing in the English homeland. Meanwhile I noticed with some apprehension that the Queen had taken my letter out of her pocket again and now was reading it held in open view propped against the table edge. Her lovely face flushed and paled, and repeatedly she made her characteristic gesture of running the tip of her tongue along her lips. But the discourse was so merry, the laughter so uproarious, that no one but Count Seckendorff and myself noticed anything amiss.

After dinner I returned to Sandkrug and Count Seckendorff followed me in due course. Rubbing his hands with gratification he told me that the Queen had been astounded to learn how far our plan had progressed. He said that even now he was busy getting ready for delivery in England letters which would open the way to an audience with His Britannic Majesty.

Count Seckendorff bade me forward his respects to Baron Buelow, with whom I had arranged a second rendezvous at some lonely spot in the heath. I was to tell him that the Queen was in complete agreement with his projects and would do everything in her power to further the necessary measures of security. For my part I promised the Count that I would come back to Celle, there pick up the letters and instructions which would go with me to England.

I left on the evening of that same day and about noon on the morrow left my carriage at Zaehrendorf, a village on the moors consisting of a miserable posthouse surrounded by some thatchy peasant hovels. Baron Buelow met me there an hour later, arriving in the ordinary open post-chaise. We greeted each other like strangers, and politely passed the time of day amid the smoked hams and sausages suspended from the low beams of the posthouse common room. The only other person besides ourselves in the place was an old shepherd, who sat solitary at the table knitting stockings. Baron Buelow invited me to take a walk with him and so, leaving the inn, we soon found ourselves in completely deserted country, with the heather growing knee-high about us.

Baron Buelow embraced me in a surge of gratitude and thanked me profusely for the services I had rendered him and his friends. I now revealed my proper name and reported that the Queen had agreed to his conditions. She was ready, I informed him, to write the letters to the King which I was to take with me to England.

“Everything depends on you at this juncture, my dear Wraxall,” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “You are the ambassador, so to speak, of a coming power. You may tell the Queen that the Viceroy of Norway, Count Laurvig, has become one of us. You may tell her, too, that the commanders of the Glueckstadt and Rendsburg fortresses are ready to open their gates when we give the word.” Smiling, he looked to see how I was taking this piece of news, and then added: “In one respect I envy you, Wraxall. You’re young and you have a great future. Some day you will have to be addressed as a lord and prime minister of England. I look forward to that distant pleasure, sir.”

“I must tell you, Baron Buelow,” I protested, “that it is not the prospect of advancement that is enlisting my interest in this affair.”

“Well, whatever it may be that brings you on our side, my dear Wraxall,” he said, “I am deeply appreciative.”

“To tell the truth, what decided me,” I said, “was my wish to see a very unhappy lady made happy again.”

Buelow gripped my hand. “You will ease the Queen’s lot immeasurably, Wraxall,” he said. “Yet you can never expect to make her really happy.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Wraxall, there are certain things that a human being can experience only once in a lifetime,” he explained, “and these things can never be repeated. When they have come and gone, one lives on, of course. But ever to be really happy again is simply out of the question.”

“I don’t know what you mean!” I said.

“You don’t?” he said incredulously. “Haven’t you ever heard of a man called Struensee? You must know the story.”

“You’re quite right, I have heard the name,” I said. “I’ve heard all sorts of rumors, I’ll admit. But when I was at Oxford I didn’t pay much attention to topical matters. Then when I was at Copenhagen I was so anxious to get home that I never dug into the story. In fact, I never thought of it at all.”

“Well, I’ll tell you about it,” said the Baron. “When it was going on I wasn’t in Copenhagen. But my good friend, the Countess Holstein was there, in fact, belonged to the Queen’s inner circle.”

And so he told his story. The afternoon hours sped by. Sometimes we sprawled on the heather, sometimes we walked about, stretching our legs, the springy heath plants muffling our steps. The Baron had not finished the tale when twilight overtook us. We went back to the inn and sat alone at the table, where somebody had lighted a candle. Over our heads hung the ubiquitous hams and sausages of Hanover.

It took the Baron until one o’clock in the morning to tell the story with all its nuances. The Baron then departed in his post-chaise, retracing his earlier route.

I, in my turn, got into my carriage and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. The people and events of the Baron’s tale whirled like mad through my head. It was a moonless night, dark as a grave. I could hear the wind over the creaking of the wheels and the squealing of the springs as we ploughed over the sandy road. The wind sighed across the moors with the sound of many little bells. The vivid images of the Baron’s story revolved round and round the figure of the Queen. My thoughts were focussed on her and her strange fate. The peculiar fearfulness that had overcome me in the theater here overcame me again, apparently evoked by the Baron and enhanced by my lonely ride across the moors.

Are we nothing but the playthings of dark powers, I asked myself; are we cast into this world for their casual amusement? Or are we, as we like to think, self-determined creatures. I remembered that I had the Queen’s garnet cross in my pocket. Feverishly I ran my fingertips over the uneven facets of the stones. But in such a troubled mood I did not venture to kiss my talisman.

Having failed to sleep a wink during the night I arrived in Celle and put up at Sandkrug, according to orders. Towards evening Mantel arrived and told me that the following afternoon I was to present myself at the pavilion in the French garden of the castle, where the Queen would meet me.

The next forenoon it rained, but towards noontime the sun came out and the day turned out to be lovely. I went directly to the garden, and of course arrived too early. The pavilion was closed. There was nothing for me to do but wander up and down the paths. In the middle of an open lawny space strewn over with yellow autumn leaves stood a little sandstone of Amor, with the features broken off and the bow gone. Yellow asters, their withered bloom bedraggled by the rain, were all about. From adjacent fields came the rank smell of burning potato-tops.

The Queen came accompanied by an elderly lady called Frau von Ompteda, whom I had met during my last visit to the castle. The Queen wore a black cloak over her carmine-red gown. After the customary greetings she looked distastefully into the damp pavilion, decided to take off her cloak the better to enjoy the sun’s warmth and expressed a wish to talk with me out in the gardens. We strolled over the lawn, then down winding paths hemmed in on either side by high beech hedges. This while I told her the news I had gathered in Zaehrendorf. The Queen was restless and abstracted. I cut my story short and suggested that she give me the orders I was to carry out in England.

“Count Seckendorff will give you the letters I have written to Lord Suffolk and Baron Lichtenstein,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. “I have taken the precaution of not going into detail. The letters merely say that you have an important mission and must speak personally with my brother, the King.”

There was a little pause and then, as I was about to take my leave, I remembered that I still had the Queen’s garnet cross. I gave it back to her and she said casually: “Oh yes, my cross.” And afterwards, out of her deeper thoughts, she went on to say to me: “Believe me, Mr. Wraxall, I really have no desire for the crown.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“If I had my children with me,” she said, “I would remain here in Celle for the rest of my life.” She took out her handkerchief and lightly dabbed at her eyes.

We continued our walk through the autumnal shrubbery. Suddenly she stopped again and said: “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Wraxall, why you are willing to run such risks on my account. Do you intend to write a book about them?”

“That can wait, Madame,” I replied.

“You don’t know who I am or what I am,” she said. “Do you?”

“But Madame!” I objected.

“You don’t really know,” she said. “I have no right to take you away from your friends and perhaps ruin your life.”

“The little that I can do, I do willingly, Madame,” I assured her. “I voluntarily offered Count Seckendorff my services.”

“No, that isn’t so,” she said. “Actually Count Seckendorff exploited your sympathies. I hold nothing against him because of that, because his intentions are the very best. And of course I am deeply grateful to you. You see, it’s so very seldom that I ever have young people here. It’s such a pleasure. You must be about the same age as myself.”

“I have just turned twenty-three, Madame,” I told her.

“Then we are both the same age,” she told me. “Though really I’m very much older than my years, as you see.”

“I should have taken Madame for younger than myself,” I said.

She looked at me quickly and smiled. “How gallant you are, Mr. Wraxall,” she said. “But how am I to get away from myself, can you tell me? That’s the worst of it, worse really than the loss of my children. I have to carry all the past locked within me. Whom shall I talk to? Frau von Ompteda and Count Seckendorff and perhaps Mantel are always willing to hear me out when I have to talk, but their generation is not mine and they cannot really understand me. My sister? She is a good woman and in her way she loves me, but she must be loyal to her husband. Nothing would tempt me to divide them. But you, Mr. Wraxall! You come to me like manna from heaven. Without my even soliciting your aid, you become my friend and put yourself out on my behalf. Yes, I trusted you the very first evening in the theater, and if Seckendorff had not come along I believe that I should have told you everything. Don’t imagine, though, that I’m always as woebegone as I sound now. Or looked then. Actually it had been a long time since I had lost control of myself. But ever since that terrible night in the theater something has been telling me, he has come at last. I can tell him everything. He will understand, he is wise and young.”

“But Madame!” Joy filled my heart, though it was frightfully embarrassing to be praised thus to my face. I knew well enough that in her need she was grossly exaggerating my virtues, to say the least.

“I won’t hear your objections,” she said severely. “If you didn’t want to share my lot, surely you wouldn’t have said what you did in the theater. Why, you have done everything to make me like and respect you.”

“Madame,” I said, all trembling, “surely you must know my feelings.”

“I do, and I value them greatly,” she said. “I am still young. Yet what can I look forward to? You see? I am walled in. I am exiled, banished from free society.”

“If all goes well, Madame, you will be free once more.”

“Never, never again, my good friend,” she said. “The walls that hem me in are not what you think. They are not real walls of stone. They are in myself. I myself am a wall, a cell. I am my own dungeon and keeper. Hidden guilt is a terrible thing, Mr. Wraxall. It corrodes and bites far more than any publicly acknowledged guilt. I am sure I shall never conquer it by myself.”

I scarcely believed my ears. Such a breach of polite forms by a Queen was more than I had ever dreamed of hearing. Then she told me her version of the past.

Her story—I might almost call it her confession—revolved about the same events that Baron Buelow had painstakingly described to me. But when the Queen herself talked about the strange affair I ceased to see it from the outside, as just another dramatic historical anecdote. Coming from her own tongue the toughness of fact, the strangeness, the remoteness of what was past and done all melted away. The tale became poignant with feeling. She poured forth despair, hope, love, guilt, so bitter was her need to have someone share her travail.

Now I had come to the living, inner kernel of the events which Buelow had so dutifully and drily recounted. At last I felt the reality of the Queen’s passion, wherein feeling was not subject to any mechanical necessity, but wherein the personal decisions of the principals, their private concept of responsibility and reckoning due, their own emotions dominated the scene.

And because of this personal quality the Queen’s words, despite their melancholy drift, despite their terror, gave me sweet release. I felt myself lifted out of the leaden flow of time marked off by the clock’s fingers, quite out of the range of life’s humdrum necessitousness.

Although I was listening attentively to everything that the Queen said, at the same time I was conscious of deliberately trying to avoid asking myself certain questions which, at this heightened moment, I was unable to formulate as I should have liked. But these questions burned strongly, if not clearly, within my mind and I was sure that, once asked, they would reveal things of much deeper meaning than anything she had so far told me during our walk in the gardens of the castle. For however impassioned and personal her story, it was something more than this. As she told it I got the impression that everything had been motivated by someone else, and everything mainly borne by this other one. She seemed to want to efface herself that this other mysterious person might stand forth more boldly. My first vague image of him gradually became fixed in outline, larger, of greater consequence. As she ordered her feelings and her thoughts relating to him, I followed her lead. Her description of the man moved me very much. I thought it superlatively feminine of her that even in retrospect she should trust the man more than she trusted herself. And this was especially noteworthy since what she told me of him was of a nature hardly conducive to implicit trust.

Although she still admittedly loved the man, as the expression in her eyes and the quiver in her voice betrayed, in good measure she was also able to see him as he really had been. She did not try to conceal his faults. She pictured him neither stronger nor weaker than he had been.

But if she moved and freed me with her legend from the past, the abyss which she opened up before my eyes shattered me. I thought how, though no older than myself, she had balled together as much experience in two or three years as I might expect to accumulate in seventy. Again I was gripped by the suffocating sensation of terror I had felt on the night in the theater. The root of this fear I am yet quite powerless to fathom. I felt so upset, indeed, that I would have liked to intervene and cut her off, and this I would have done had I not realized each memory uttered was so much less burden on her heart.

The light was beginning to fail when the Queen brought her reminiscences to an end. Frau von Ompteda was walking back and forth nervously in front of the pavilion like a hen worried about her brood. All this while she had been carrying the Queen’s cloak over her arm, and was manifestly relieved to throw it back over her charge’s shoulders to ward off the impending night chill. Mantel had spread fruits and sweets on a table in the pavilion, but neither the Queen nor I had any appetite.

The Queen expressed a wish to see me immediately upon my return from England. I left her with Frau von Ompteda in the garden, she smiling at me through the barred gate as she slowly closed it behind her. To spare the ladies any discomfiture, I waited a few moments and then followed after them, going back eventually to Sandkrug.

The next morning I was given the letters for England. At nine I was ready and seated in my carriage. The rain was coming down very fine, and autumn, it appeared, had settled down in earnest. I was thoughtful, but calm and warm within as I sat wrapped in my cloak in a far corner of the seat, my hat pulled down over my eyes.

Endlessly the rain sifted down. The roads became sloughs through which we crawled at a snail’s pace. But so absorbed was I in the pageant of the past that the Queen and Buelow had depicted for me that I paid no heed to the dreadful weather, the horrid roads and the cursing postillions, nor to the desolate taverns where we stopped to change or rest the animals.

Yesterday I arrived at last in Rotterdam. Thick fog lay over this city of canals. Since it is impossible for my ship to sail in such murk, I am making use of my idleness by putting these thoughts down on paper. This very moment I went to the window. I see that the fog is beginning to stir. There is hardly any wind, just enough to roll the fog into thick rolls which drift through the streets like clouds. Yet if I am not mistaken a roof tile is gleaming. The sun is going to break through. I believe I shall sail tonight.